


Canary in a Coal Mine

by savethetribbles (orphan_account)



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:55:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/savethetribbles
Summary: ** This work is being rewritten as Pandora **Leonard's relationship with Jim and Spock is tested when the Enterprise encounters a mission too big for its britches.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock, James T. Kirk/Spock, Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock
Comments: 19
Kudos: 52





	1. Chapter 1

The Enterprise was 1,311 days into its five-year mission, and four months into an extended effort on Remopia. Command had sent the Enterprise to Remopia because of its central trading location and its high concentration of zenite. Valuable strategic gains, but damn it if it wasn't a miserable planet. The zenite underground released a toxin that induced intense paranoia and inhibited emotional restraint, creating an environment unconducive at best to the Enterprise's current mission: de-escalate animosities; assist with industrial and economic progress; introduce a mining and trade partnership with the Federation; sow the seeds for the transformation of Remopia into a future port for Federation use.

Captain James Kirk spent most nights around that time wide awake in his ready-room, reading through his crew's research on the various situations at hand. The more he read, the more uncharacteristically despondent he felt. He and his crew had accomplished similar missions, but he couldn't help but feel like they had arrived at Remopia 100 years too late. Fractured tribes ruled. His undercover social scientists couldn't find any evidence of a communal identity or value system that had prevailed for longer than half a century. There were hundreds of communities on a planet the size of Earth's moon. Its most abundant military resource defined each community. In just four months, each of the 15 significant tribes (defined by Command as a population over 500,000 Remopians) had undergone regime change in response to a leader's failure to respond popularly to an act of aggression from a neighboring tribe. For the Enterprise, this meant that there was no central identity to manipulate towards a collective call to change, and no central figure to cooperate with.

Captain Kirk had initially sent one crew of five down to Remopia's largest center, Woudros, to establish an impression, per protocol: himself, the chief strategist of the ship; McCoy, of course, as the ship's foremost psychologist; Uhura, to establish a linguistic base that would go on to assist the undercover scientists; and two members of Security, McCarter, and Overmyer. Jim published the surface party names 24 hours before arrival at Remopia. Only thirty minutes after releasing the memo, he received a message from Spock: _I wish to discuss your choices for the away team at your earliest convenience._

That same evening, after finishing his work on cosmic string detection with Chekov, Spock found Leonard and Jim together in Leonard's office. The door was closed, and two glasses of brandy were on the table between them. Leonard greeted him with a smile and the gentle brush of his fingertips against Spock's; Spock returned the gesture but looked directly at Jim, irritated. Jim sighed knowingly and wouldn't meet his eyes.

"You never responded to my request," he started, taking his fingers back from Leonard to stand straight with his hands clasped behind his back. "I preferred to have this conversation in a more professional setting, but as you dutifully ignored me all day, this will have to do."

They had the same conversation every time Jim placed himself or Bones (or god forbid, both of them) on an away team without Spock. Something about Jim's proclivity for self-sacrifice and bold action based on gut instinct, and Leonard's at times obstinate sense of Right and Good coupled with an unwavering sense of duty and loyalty. It was clear to the two of them, Jim and Leonard, that Spock, despite his refusal to admit it, saw himself as their guardian since the three had bonded. Despite his emotional mettle and exceptional professionalism, the Vulcan could not resist the argument, no matter how spurious, that his presence alongside the two of them was essential.

Jim and Leonard were accustomed to Spock's reaction at this point. Jim met Bones' eye and grinned a small thing. Leonard stood from his seat, walked to his desk's edge, and pulled Spock toward him by the crook of his elbow. Spock's lips pulled down slightly in an annoyed frown. Undeterred, Leonard reached for one of Spock's wrists and tugged gently on his hand until Spock gave him control. He raised his palm to cup his cheek, guiding Spock's fingers to cradle his temple. Spock's lips parted at the rush of calm and love Leonard sent through their bond, and Jim watched his chest rise and fall in a deep, steadying breath. He felt his own head cloud with secondhand affection and took a sip of his brandy while he watched Bones work.

"It's OK, darlin'," Leonard assured him, his lips pressed against Spock's hairline and voice honeyed and warm. He felt a stab of fear and anxiety rush through his partner, and he pressed Spock against his chest with a hand at the small of his back to extinguish it. "You've got us mighty invested, you know. We're gonna miss you something horrible."

Spock turned his face into Leonard's neck and breathed out a defeated sigh. He relented under Leonard's attention and squeezed the doctor's thighs on either side of his waist. Leonard gave a breathy laugh and kissed Spock's face again, feeling the weight lift off Spock's chest ever so slightly. "There you go, baby," he whispered.

"Gentlemen," Jim interrupted from his seat, sensing the shift in mood. He stood up and drained his and Bones' remaining brandy. With four eyes on him, he grinned widely and gestured to the door. "I recommend we retire to our quarters so that we may show Mr. Spock how thoroughly he'll be missed."

* * *

While the initial landing party hadn't been a total disaster, in retrospect, it did set the tone for a mission that would tend closer and closer to abject failure. When the five arrived on the outskirts of town, dressed in what they thought to be appropriate disguises, they learned that there was no general sense of style. Each tribe wore a particular pattern that distinguished them from the others, and the Enterprise party walked right into the wrong design.

Uhura took McCarter and hiked through the regions of three different tribes in two weeks. They distinguished one prominent linguistic family altered per tribe through minor accentual specifications. While reporting her findings, she described the brutal executions she witnessed whenever someone was discovered to be an outsider, accused of spycraft. Through the testimony of tribespeople, she learned that the outsider's treachery was often revealed through the slightest slip of tongue or misstep in in-group behavior. It would take her team weeks to create the necessary technological facades for future parties.

Leonard and Jim didn't find any better news. Jim stayed mostly at the camouflaged base outside of Woudros, studying topographic maps of the planet. It presented a strategic challenge, to say the least. The planet was 75% water, most of it shallow and overtop of a resource-rich landmass. The rest of it was almost entirely open land pockmarked with ruined terrain from a lifetime of armed and chemical struggle. The climate matched exactly, with heavy winds and storm-like conditions as the norm.

Leonard stayed with Overmyer in the heart of Woudros, constantly slinking about to avoid detection. There were whole hours when Jim, overcome with sudden anxiety, would turn from his research to Bones' bodycam footage. Most of it involved Bones and Overmyer simply walking through crowded streets of humanoid Remopians. Passersby's feverish eyes always struck Jim as they darted quickly to and from what appeared to be residential camps, crowded markets, or heavily fortified buildings for necessary administration or weapons manufacturing. Although only their mate was Vulcan, after almost a year of their shared bond, Jim had a sense of McCoy's internal state. He could feel Bones' anger and shame overlaying his own frustrations, along with some other discontent that Jim could not put his finger on … He wondered if Spock could sense it too, so far away.

One afternoon while Jim was reading through his daily technical updates aboard the Enterprise, his gut lurched so urgently that he choked on his breath. Bones, he thought, maybe even shouted, as he ran to his team's bodycam PADD. He thumbed to McCoy, Leonard, and found there the footage of a young girl being ripped from an older woman's arms, absolutely distressed, surrounded by men in warrior's garb. It didn't take a translator to know what was happening. Suddenly primitive batons were out, beating back the woman and smashing the little girl's hands as she reached out to her. "Get your hands off of her!" Jim heard through the feed; it didn't register to him at first that that voice was Leonard's, the words Standard.

He ripped his communicator out of his pocket. "Stand down, McCoy!" he shouted into the comm, panic growing in him alongside the rage he felt from the doctor. He watched the feed jut sideways as Overmyer grabbed Leonard's arm to pull him away. "Get out of there!"

The next thing Jim saw were hands reaching out over the bodycam, grabbing on to Leonard's coverings. He heard shouting garbled into one giant roar by all the different voices, turned on the doctor and Overmyer. The footage from both men's bodycams cut out, and Jim, wide-eyed and panting, comm'ed the ship. "Security and Transporter Room, I want eyes on Leonard McCoy and Jeffrey Overmyer's vitals now until they return to base. If significant blood loss occurs, they will be beamed to the ship immediately; prime directive be damned."

Jim received his ayes and sat back down at his table. He rubbed both hands over his face and swallowed back his fear being supplemented by the adrenaline he could sense coursing through McCoy. After a few moments, he sent a message to Spock. _He's OK._ Spock didn't reply.

* * *

Fortunately, Leonard and Overmyer were OK. They returned to base three days later, having camped out for half of that time to shake any shadows. Jim resisted the temptation to grab Leonard by the ears and kiss him until they both passed out when he saw his broken nose with two black eyes and a small cut on his forehead. For the time being, it was enough for both men to feel the great relief at seeing each other in one piece through their bond.

McCoy's report provided the first real stepping stone to their mission. There was no hard, reliable data on zenite-rich surfaces yet. Still, the hypothesis that zenite inhibited emotional and intellectual processes, resulting in paranoia and aggression, was strongly supported by the behavior that Leonard witnessed in Woudros. He concluded that filtered masks, and some way to distribute them with the public's support, could transform Remopia.

The team returned to the Enterprise after two and a half weeks on the planet. Spock was in the transporter room when the five members of the away team beamed aboard. They were intact, only mostly on edge from the zenite. McCoy could feel Spock's eyes lingering over his almost healed facial wounds, and he rolled his eyes.

The Vulcan cleared his throat and addressed the team. "There is lunch in the debriefing room."

That night Jim cradled Bones against his chest. He held tight to the back of Spock's neck as Spock rolled his hips, pushing himself as deeply as he could inside Leonard, gritting his teeth and almost groaning with every thrust. One of his hands was on the bed under Jim's leg, and the other was resting between twin bruises on Leonard's chest. Leonard was breathless between the two men, panting as he rubbed himself against Spock's belly and worked Jim's dick.

"I love you, honey," he moaned, pressing his free hand against Spock's face to combat the wave of angst in the Vulcan threatening to spill over. Spock stuttered out a breath, and Jim opened his eyes to find Spock looking right at him, face flushed green. "Goddamn, I love you," Leonard said again.

* * *

"I miss Bones," Jim said to Spock one night in the ready-room, three and a half months after the three of them had last been together. Spock hummed but didn't look up from his report.

Command was antsy, the crew was antsy, and Jim felt like shit. The Enterprise wasn't making objective progress towards any end on Remopia. All of the bureaucratic leads they formed were eradicated days after pursuing them in coup after coup. McCoy's team was in constant danger, scattered over the planet, on their mission to introduce the risks of zenite to the various tribes. As if even talking to the different tribes' inhabitants was not a significant enough danger, there was constant war. By virtue of the mineral richness of the planet, chemical warfare was an always present threat. The Enterprise had lost six crew members already. They were simply wandering through the streets or working undercover in their stationed communities when suddenly the air around them would thicken with poison. Jim would watch from his command chair as another one of his crew's vitals spiked and then dropped. There was never enough time to beam them out, never enough time for them to put on the mask they all carried inside of their coverings, never enough time for McCoy to reach them.

McCoy stayed on Remopia to lead the planetside effort, based in Woudros. His commitment to the people of the planet was unwavering, and his strong-willed briefs back to the Enterprise both inspired and crippled the ship's captain and its second-in-command. After the second crew member's death, both Jim and Spock had been expressly forbidden from basing themselves planetside for the mission's duration. Presumably, to not strand the fleet's most successful deep space exploratory vessel in the bowels of a far-off galaxy without a captain and/or that captain's immediate replacement. Leonard McCoy, though, was strongly encouraged to remain planetside -- a mantle and duty that he accepted with a great sense of pride, despite his partners' dread. The Federation wasn't going to take Remopia by force just for zenite, and diplomacy without coherence was out of the question. It was Doctor McCoy and his team's job to introduce that coherence.

"Did you hear me?" Jim demanded, looking straight at Spock until he lifted his face to meet Jim's stare.

"Yes," Spock replied blandly. He sat his PADD down gently and continued looking at Jim, expressionless, with his hands clasped in front of him on the table.

Jim hesitated for a moment, waiting for Spock to continue. When he didn't, Jim barked out a laugh and threw his PADD down. "I'm trying to fucking talk to you, Spock. I miss Bones. I miss my crew. I miss Sanders, Hernandez, Win, Patoda, Verox, Binia. I miss being able to goddamn accomplish anything in this wasteland!" He drew in a breath he didn't realize he needed and carded a hand through his hair. "I feel absolutely lost. All of these people, all of their families …" he trailed off, looking at Spock for anything, eyes wild with fatigue and desperation. "They depend on me to keep them safe and to know what to do, and I'm just fucking sitting here, letting my crew run around like farm animals waiting for the slaughter."

Spock looked at him from the other side of the table, waiting for him to continue. Jim shook his head and let it drop into his hands. "The autopsy reports show split-second internal hemorrhaging. How does a society incapable of anything beyond primitive political infrastructure create a poison gas that kills in a matter of minutes?"

After a moment of silence, the sound of Spock's chair rolling back filled the room. "Jim," Spock called to him, perching in the chair next to his and laying a heavy hand on the captain's arm. "The Enterprise will fail on Remopia because we are not occupiers or regime creators. We are explorers." Jim locked his eyes on Spock's fingers and breathed deeply. "My recommendation is to submit an appeal to the Federation with the intent to abandon the mission. We may include a memo that advises a long-term oversight effort, thus leaving the fate of Remopia to the Federation's interest."

Jim huffed in disbelief. "I don't quit, Spock. The Enterprise does not quit."

"Then we will be here until we are forced to leave because our five-year mission is over," Spock replied simply. "Or until the Federation recognizes the wasted effort itself, and forces us to leave before then."

He reached for Jim's chin then, always tender, and turned the captain to face him. "And I miss Leonard, too."

* * *

"It's unrealistic," Bones said one night to Jim and Spock via stream, face dirty and back hunched against a torrential storm outside his thin tent. A hazmat grade mask covered his mouth and nose. "Jim, we only started three months ago. I have crew members in every major tribe on this planet. Command thinks that they can not only immerse but also institute fundamental change in twelve weeks?"

"Don't forget that those are my crew members, Bones. And they're dying." _And also, I recommended to the Admiralty that the mission be given an artificial deadline of sixteen weeks_ , he didn't add.

Bones stilled for a moment on the other side of the feed and took a breath before continuing. "We all accepted our position and duties on the Enterprise knowing full well that our lives weren't promised at the end of it, Captain." Jim felt Spock's hackles rise next to him. "These people down here are being poisoned by their own planet, for Christ's sake, and then they're turning around and murdering each other. My team has the opportunity at this moment to permit a future for the next generation based on something other than trembling fear and uncertainty. You ask anyone on my team, anyone, and they'll all say the same thing: We are in deep space for these children."

"You are in deep space to explore new worlds and new civilizations. What you are doing now is procuring a new commercial trading partner for the Federation," Spock intoned.

Bones t'ched, pained, and flashed a disgusted look at Spock. "I'm proud to say that I have a different qualitative view of life than you, Mr. Spock."

"What you have is a hero complex, doctor."

Jim interrupted Bones' fevered response with a command for them to settle down. Leonard gathered himself and continued, "Jim, all I'm asking is for an extra set of four weeks. Give us two more months down here, and I know we'll have something concrete to present to the Admiralty. Please, tell me you'll submit the request."

"Yes, Bones," Jim replied, reaching out to touch the PADD under Leonard's right eye. "In the meantime, you all are under strict orders to remain safe and well."

Leonard rolled his eyes and nodded, smiling slightly under his mask. "Yes, Captain." He nodded towards Spock. "Commander," he bid curtly, and then he was gone.

* * *

For better or worse, Captain Kirk did not submit the request for an additional four weeks of McCoy's Remopian mission. Pressed for time and confident that all he needed was one big push to convince the Admiralty to accept a request he didn't know they did not receive, Leonard worked more consistently and sleeplessly since 2259 when he created a cure for death. His team, inspired by their own personal call to duty as well as their leader's, matched his fervor and more. Jim was awed by their work, receiving new briefs every day from the 15 separate outposts, all building on each other's work. It became apparent that the only shot they had to popularize the filtered mask was to make sure the warrior wore it, and hopefully his or her family, and maybe even his or her enemy. But how?

Leonard had positioned himself at a manufacturing unit in Woudros at the beginning of the mission. The plan submitted for approval to Captain Kirk relied on that role heavily. He would introduce the specs for a minor weapon -- a nasal cavity irritant, if anything, almost nothing more than a pepper bomb -- that necessitated the soldiers carrying it wear a mask to "protect themselves." Jim hoped the magic was in its simplicity.

Jim and Spock watched the plan unfold via Leonard's bodycam in the dark ready-room, flanked by the Enterprise's chief officers. Jim gripped Spock's leg under the table. He could feel the Vulcan trying to calm them both down through their bond, but with Leonard's vitals on screen by the footage, his heartbeat racing, there was little success in that.

Using Uhura's microscopic Standard translator, Leonard explained the weapon to his Remopian senior weapons officers. He tested a small sample of it on himself in a closed-off space, pointing to his leaking eyes, leaking nose, and violent cough as evidence of its potency. He left the area, dabbed some liquid on his face, and then returned to the closed-off space to retest the weapon for his superiors while wearing his mask. No reaction.

The officers seemed receptive. Leonard offered them all one of his masks, his heart absolutely pounding in his chest. Deeply suspicious, two of the officers pulled weapons on McCoy. Jim watched angry eyes blaze at Leonard's audacious behavior and squeezed Spock's thigh to anchor himself. Still, they let the doctor, Leonard McCoy, Weapons Manufacturer, wrap the mask around their leader's mouth and nose. With less than a full week left in the mission, Leonard McCoy and his team had their first real win with no associated lives lost. Two days after McCoy's weapon and mask were introduced, Woudros's warriors hurled pepper bombs into the neighboring tribe, flaunting their masks and scurrying back home.

It was time to sit back and watch the other tribe follow suit, Leonard thought. They would replicate the pepper bomb, harmless enough, and they would copy the mask. At least two tribes would finally stand the chance of combating zenite's effects on their nervous system. His scientist in the neighboring tribe, Zarath, reported that she believed her community's weapons team had retreated for deliberation.

In short order, Zarath's prediction proved inaccurate. Instead of replicating a pepper bomb and its companion mask, they produced a toxin that directly attacked the eyes and ears, creeping in through exposed skin and orifices. The effect was powerful, though not instantaneously fatal. Leonard and his security detail of two officers were seriously ill within 24 hours.

"We're fine, we're great," Leonard slurred when Jim comm'ed him midday after seeing Leonard's vitals aboard the Enterprise. The doctor's eyes were swollen, and he was sweating profusely. "I'm taking care of Rio and Tapora, and we're all fine. No one else was exposed. We're working out the rest of the mission."

Within 36 hours of exposure, Leonard, Rio, and Tapora's vitals were barely registering. Leonard wasn't responding to Jim's comms. Immediate evacuation of the landing party was ordered with one more full day left in the mission. Leonard was fast asleep in a coma induced by fever, his hand in Spock's, as the Enterprise warped far away from motherfucking Remopia.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is experiencing a rewrite :)

Resting on Leonard’s sickbed, watching him sleep, Jim almost forgot how fucked he was.

Spock cleared his throat and looked up from his reverie to Jim, sensing his discomfort. It made sense that he would be physically uncomfortable, squeezed as he was between Leonard’s body and the rigid bar currently raised on the hospital bed. Knowing Jim, though, Spock suspected that the discomfort was of a different nature.

“I have considered Leonard’s reaction to you not requesting his mission's extension, even though you suggested that you would,” he eventually offered.

Jim groaned and pushed his face into the unkempt hair that had grown up around Bones’ jaw while he was away. “On your advice, Mr. Spock. What’s the plan?”

“It was not my advice to lie to Leonard.” Spock looked at the doctor’s vitals and let a breath out of his nose sharply. Geoffrey said that he expected McCoy to wake any time in the next day, based on his fever's improvement. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around Jim’s exposed ankle. “If you’re requesting my recommendation, it is to approach the subject with him right away.”

“Alright,” Jim drawled, running his fingers over the side of Leonard’s face, filled with dread. “I plan to look him in the eye as soon as he wakes up, and get right to the point. Good morning, sweetheart; I lied to you.”

Spock squeezed Jim’s ankle. “Perhaps it is better that you spend this time creating a computer virus to reprogram this situation.” When Jim looked up, shocked, Spock was already watching him with the tiniest hint of a smile on his lips.

* * *

Leonard woke up two hours later in a fit, rising straight from deep sleep to panicked wakefulness. “I need to go back down,” he insisted, looking between M’Benga, Spock, and Jim for the extent of his physical. Spock eventually asked for a moment alone with the good doctor to give him the gift of a little peace, cradling his face and sharing a meditative calm through their bond. At that moment, Spock met Leonard’s ghost for the first time: a small Remopian boy, young, sat outside of the crew’s base, orphaned. Leonard had approached him and given him a kindness that it was doubtful he had experienced before on the paranoid and hostile planet. Spock saw him smile at Leonard, all teeth, and he felt Leonard’s chest open wide under the gesture.

“I believe that Leonard was caring for a young child in Woudros,” Spock told Jim that night, both of them wide awake, lying in their bed while Leonard rested in Medbay. Jim didn’t respond, but Spock felt his gut wrench as he curled more tightly into a ball on his left side.

When Spock was on the verge of sleep, Jim said, “I don’t know what I was thinking.” Spock rolled onto his side, facing Jim. After a moment, he continued, more strongly, “The Enterprise had to leave Remopia. I made a mistake not telling Leonard that I ordered the deadline. I shouldn’t have told him that I would request an extension of the mission. But goddammit, leaving Remopia was the right thing to do.” He rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling with his hands crossed over his chest. “And Bones knows me.” He laughed once and turned to share it with Spock, searching his face for reassurance. “He’ll understand when I explain that I didn’t want him to feel like I doubted him, in case it impacted his work.”

Spock quirked his eyebrow. “Is that why, Jim?”

Jim’s smile fell, and he looked back up at the ceiling. There was a moment of silence. Spock waited, and Jim swallowed. When he continued, his voice was clear. “He’ll understand when I explain that I didn’t want what could very well have been our final conversation to be an argument. Over the natural rights and dignity of sentient life versus my duty as the captain of the Enterprise, nonetheless.”

For Spock, learning to be with Jim and Leonard had been and continued to be a challenge. They had taught him so much in very little time: how to laugh at them, with them, and himself; how to give personal criticism to someone whose entire trust you hold in your hands, and how to receive it; how to make fruit tarts, easily the most delicious treat Spock had ever encountered … The most difficult challenge, though, was learning to “be there” for them. It was important to be honest, they told Spock, but it was also important to be mindful, thoughtful, and compassionate. Spock struggled to integrate that lesson with Leonard and Jim; he often didn’t realize he was in a moment of “being there” until he had already erred.

In bed, listening to the ship's gentle hum and the automated plant-watering mechanism in the sitting area, it was very clear that Jim needed Spock to be there. But Spock couldn’t figure how to assist without telling a lie, which he would not do. Leonard would understand, but he would be furious. Even Spock was caught off guard by the captain’s misbehavior, and he not only understood but had also guided Jim’s position. He was sure a thorough debrief of the mission would address the manipulative role a romantic relationship played between the Enterprise’s CMO/away team lead and the Enterprise’s Captain. At that moment, Spock wasn’t sure if Jim had even thought about that yet.

Jim turned to face Spock again, and the need for security, affection, and comfort rushed out of him. Spock made a small noise in the back of his throat. Still unable to respond with verbal reassurance, he pulled Jim to his chest and held the back of his head.

“Whatever comes,” he eventually offered, after Jim had calmed significantly in his embrace. “We will encounter it together.”

* * *

When either Jim, Leonard, or Spock experienced something harrowing, it was usual for them to act as normally as possible upon returning to their quarters. It wasn't that they were afraid of being vulnerable, Leonard hypothesized. They always spoke their truths, usually within a few days, and never as late as multiple weeks. A body needed time to react to a traumatic event, find the words and feelings associated with it, and establish the foundation for recovery and process. In the time it took to experience that series of needs, it was instinct to put up the protective barrier that is nonchalance. They each had their own way of providing support in this early stage: Spock with meditation and soothing influence; Leonard with engagement in some creative outlet or another, his favorite inexplicably being clay modeling; and Jim with a warm embrace, all quiet but for the cheerful and easygoing conversation in which he excelled. By the time they were ready to talk, the effect on the bond was palpable.

On the day that Leonard was due to come home from his recovery in Medbay, Jim intended to have a strategy built upon that precedent. He and Spock would wander by, see Bones through his exit physical, and then accompany him back to their quarters, wherein Jim would gently probe for anything Bones wanted to get off of his chest. Afterward, he would reveal the final piece of information that Bones needed before starting his emotional recovery: context.

The morning was off to a weird start, though. Jim felt like absolute shit by the time he got out of bed. His thoughts were muddied but busy, and he was in a god awful mood. Spock was in his office meditating, an odd break in ritual for him.

“What’s up?” Jim asked from the doorway, chugging his coffee.

Spock’s shoulders tensed, annoyed, and Jim could hear him exhale a slow but uneven breath. “I am not sure ‘what’s up,’” he responded. “But I am certain that it’s Leonard. He must be awake already.”

Jim sighed, and a fear roared through him that twisted his stomach and narrowed the breath in his throat. Spock shivered through a chill.

“I should’ve been there already. Wanted to be there when he woke up.” Jim tapped his fingers against his coffee mug and continued watching Spock. “Let’s go?”

It was so strange, Spock thought moments later as he dressed in his Science blues in front of the mirror in their room. He watched his own fingers adjust his shirt's neckline and tried to find a calm in his breath. Leonard’s effect on the bond was certainly the strongest, as if he leaned his entire 86kg into it, unguarded. What was unusual this time was the speed with which it swayed and grew, as if only beginning, and the vague swirl of emotions within the turmoil itself. Spock, somewhat practiced, noticed not only grief and anger, but also defensiveness, aggression, and righteousness. He felt for Jim, with his own subset of internal disharmony, bombarded by Leonard’s and no interpretation for it except physical illness and confusion.

In the hall by Medbay, Spock looked up ahead and then glanced over his shoulder. He listened closely for approaching footsteps. Sensing nothing, he stopped still and reached for Jim’s wrist. Jim spun, startled out of his trepidation, and tried to yank his wrist away. Spock pushed his back gently against the wall.

“I am with you,” he promised, reaching up to hold the side of Jim’s neck while he kissed him. “You are my t’hy’la.”

Jim moaned and reached for Spock, grabbing him by the cloth at his shoulders and holding him close. “Thank you,” he whispered, resting his head against Spock’s cheek. He kissed him once more and then pulled away, straightening his shirt. “After you,” he said once he had collected himself and gestured towards the doorway.

Leonard, of course, was already in his office. M’Benga pulled Jim and Spock aside when they entered. “He’s fine,” he told them after trailing through Leonard’s chart. His eyes moved towards Leonard’s office and then came back to them, and he whistled low under his breath. “But he is fucking pissed.”

Jim rocked back on his heels, hands clasped behind his back, and gave Geoffrey a tight smile. “Thanks so much!” He turned to Spock then and barked out a single laugh. “Let’s go welcome our esteemed doctor back to the land of us fortunate living.”

* * *

The office was dark except for a single, dim wall lamp behind Leonard’s desk. It was largely spotless after three months of TLC by Christine, except for the nutrient bar wrappers McCoy had already littered around his desk. The thin cotton clothes relegated to patients were crumpled in a pile by the door. Leonard was gulping down a cup of water when Jim and Spock entered, dressed in an extra Science shirt and his underwear.

“Hey boys,” he said gruffly when they came in, clearly working on something over his night-filtered PADD.

Spock and Jim exchanged a glance, mostly bewildered. “Uh, hey?” Jim joked, walking over to Leonard’s chair and gripping the back of it in his hands. “What’re you working on, Bones? You’re not cleared for duty.”

“I’m resigning,” Leonard replied, as if it was obvious. Spock felt Jim freeze from the inside out behind the desk.

“Leonard,” Spock began, taking over for Jim, whose mind had gone entirely blank. “I am sure that the best thing to do is to get some more rest. We can meditate -- "

McCoy interrupted him. “Don’t tell me what the best thing to do is. I’m not interested in your Best Ideas.”

“Bones!” Jim snapped, swerving back around the desk to face him. He spoke firmly. “You are not _resigning_ right now.” He licked his lips and darted his eyes across the room before settling a forceful and dominant stare on McCoy. “You are not the acting CMO of this ship at this time. I order you to leave this office and go to your quarters.”

Leonard stared back at him until he could feel his ears ringing with tension. “And I will never be the goddamn CMO of this ship again, Jim,” he bit out after a moment, standing from his chair and leaning his fists against the desk to level against the captain. “I will not be a part of a program that abandons missions of peace and civilization even as they progress. That delegitimizes its crew by commanding their deaths meaningless, with no explanation!”

There was a moment in their eye contact that Jim begged Leonard to feel differently, to be different. Only the same Doctor looked back at him, though. “I asked Command for permission to withdraw from Remopia, and I didn’t request your extension.”

Spock stiffened behind Jim as the thick mood in the room shifted darker. “What?” Leonard managed to ask eventually, his voice quiet and brow furrowed deeper than Jim had ever seen it. He stepped back away from the desk. “What the fuck are you telling me?”

“I’m saying that I am the Captain of the Starship Enterprise, and I decided to leave Remopia to protect my ship’s resources and crew.” Jim straightened his back and ran his hand over his shirt. “To this second, I do not believe that a mission on Remopia aligns with the Enterprise’s fundamental values -- "

Leonard interrupted again, naturally: “Why didn’t you tell me?” Jim paused then, mouth open, and waited for a confident answer to rise out of his mind and take over. When nothing came out, Leonard huffed out a disbelieving noise and looked to Spock. Spock stood impassive behind Jim, queasy. Leonard looked back at Jim. “It’s because you didn’t want me to be mad at you, you fucking coward.” He grabbed the PADD off his desk and smashed it against the side of his table before throwing it to the floor. Jim shook his head and reached out as if to staunch the flame on a hand towel after the kitchen had already burnt up. “Let's go tell my team, the families of the dead! Let them know the brave Captain and Leader gave up on their mission, God knows when, and didn't bring it up because he was worried I wouldn’t fuck him when he told me what he really thought. Go down to Remopia and bury the tiny bodies who never stood a chance because it was you and me protecting them!”

“Doctor McCoy!” Jim shouted, squaring his shoulders against the sweltering anger in the room. He felt dizzy.

“Jim Kirk!” Leonard screamed back, wild in his long shirt and underwear, arms outstretched, and chest heaving.

Spock cleared his throat and took a step closer to the two men. “Leonard,” he said calmly. “The Enterprise was never going to base outside of Remopia for an extended time, but your team did phenomenal work in the short time you were there. We have already submitted a formal recommendation, using your intelligence, for a concerted effort devoted to Remopia. I believe that with your testimony in the briefing tomorrow, we can -- "

“Spock, shut the fuck up.” Leonard squeezed the bridge of his nose and took a steadying breath. When he looked up, his eyes were wet. “You still don’t know me even a bit,” he said to the Vulcan, looking at him pointedly. “And you,” he said to Jim, turning to face him. “You’ve broke my fucking heart, and I think you’re a villain.”

The room was silent while Leonard pulled the disposable pants back on by the doorway. He exited without another word. Spock watched the camera feed on the far wall as he walked through Medbay and left out the nearest sliding door. Jim exhaled heavily and leaned his full weight against Leonard’s desk. “How do you turn this off,” he groaned, pressing the heel of his hand against his chest.

When Spock returned to their quarters that evening to find Jim alone, he realized his surprise was just his own mind playing a trick on him. Jim didn’t say anything, so neither did he.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She's going through a rewrite :)

Scotty could count on one hand the times in his life he had felt as good as he had over the past few weeks. His brane work was proving extremely interesting and satisfying, the Enterprise was purring like a kitten under his loving care, and his hands were gripping Uhura's ass. 

"We shouldn't do this here," she whispered against his lips, and they both used the moment to grin devilishly at each other. The instruments they played together lay abandoned by the observation deck window as he picked her up against him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and Scotty felt his brain turn into fuzz under her gaze. His breath rushed out of him, and he blinked back at her, eyes blown open and mystified. 

"I cannae wait now," he replied, peppering kisses on her neck and jaw. Uhura jerked her hips against his belly and let out a low noise. Scotty moaned out loud, much louder than her refined sound, and pressed their lips back together. "I need to see you," he almost begged, extending his fingertips to brush against her underwear's lacey edge. 

Uhura laughed breathily and squeezed him in a tight hug with her arms and legs. "Not right here, at least." She wriggled free of his grip and reached for his hand, hunching down and putting a finger to her lips. 

The two scurried across the room's dark back wall to a quiet area by the window decorated with bookshelves, armchairs, and a few cots built into an alcove. The closer they got, the less control Scotty felt, eventually turning Uhura in his hands and kissing her deeply as they walked back towards the alcove. "Monty," she protested lightly, reaching for one of his hands and bringing it up to palm at her breast through her dress. 

"Yes, yes, Nyota," Scotty chanted, feeling hot all over. He lifted her in his arms and kissed anything he could reach as he lowered her down to the nearest cot. "Yes, my bonnie --"

"What!" a voice erupted from the bed, crashing around on the tiny rubber mattress. Uhura screamed and jerked out of Scotty's arms, stumbling for a moment before whipping around to face the bed. Scotty himself let loose an absolute screech, jumping back a full three feet with his hands in the air. 

McCoy jerked up and out of his rest, smacking his head against the top of the alcove. "Damn it!" He held his forehead and glared at them accusingly. "I'm a doctor, not a marriage bed!" 

Uhura and Scotty exchanged astonished looks, jaws dropped and eyes wide. Scotty's hands were still up in the air. After a second, he burst out laughing. Uhura couldn't resist the urge to laugh as well, covering her face with her hands while her shoulders shook. "Mighty sorry, McCoy. We would've asked you to join if we knew you were there," Scotty jabbed, his voice full of mirth. He dropped his hands. "What are you even damn doing here? And what are you wearing, man?" 

Leonard looked down at himself and snorted. "Pajamas," he answered shortly.

Scotty and Uhura's laughter began to trickle off. After Uhura drew a deep breath and wiped her eyes, she looked discerningly at Leonard. She noticed his bare feet and the literally no possessions he had with him except for the clothes on his back. Leonard himself wasn't meeting their eyes and appeared totally unamused. 

Uhura cleared her throat softly and turned to get Scotty's attention. Scotty was still waiting for Leonard to say more, and he didn't hear Uhura until she cleared her throat for a second time more forcefully. She gestured her hand once between Scotty and Leonard, nodding her head towards the doctor. When Scotty finally got the message, he shook his head and gestured his own hand towards his rapidly deflating erection. 

"Well, Len, now that you know I call Scott' Monty' in bed," Uhura started, eyes still locked on Scotty. She crossed over to the doctor and laid her hand gently on his shoulder with a squeeze. "I'm going to go die of embarrassment in the privacy of my quarters. You gentlemen have a good evening." 

Leonard grunted without looking up, and Scotty shook his head sharply at Uhura as she walked back towards him and lifted herself to kiss his cheek. "I'll see you around," she bid farewell, loud enough for both men to hear. She winked at Scotty before she walked away. 

"Take my flute with you!" Scotty shouted a full minute later as an afterthought, his hand outstretched as if he could will the math of space and time to bend around his desire. When she was long gone, he let out a deep sigh and walked over to Leonard, dropping heavily on the mattress. "Whiskey?" he asked after a long draw of silence, clapping his hand against McCoy's leg. 

Leonard laughed after a second, shaking his head and pressing his fingers into the bridge of his nose. "Yeah," he yawned, standing up with his hands on his knees before opening up into a full stretch. "Whiskey." 

* * *

Leonard gasped awake at 0800 with a pounding headache and cottonmouth. "God," he groaned, licking his lips and sitting up to press his palms against his eyes. It had been ages since he'd woken up like this, as if he was some kind of young buck that had decided to have one more ten times in a row. Probably the fact that he was in a coma three days ago wasn't helping. And also the fact that he had slept on Scotty's regulation couch with a throw pillow under his head for support and no other bedding. Jim and Spock had always made sure he got tucked into bed. 

"Good morning!" Scotty chimed suddenly, breezing out of his bedroom doorway, fully dressed and light on his feet. "The uniform we ordered from Laundry last night came in." He tossed an air-packed rectangle stuffed with a Science shirt, a pair of regulation cotton pants, and a pair of regulation underwear and socks over to McCoy, who only just managed to catch it. "There's a pair of trainers by the couch you can borrow also." 

Scotty rustled through his kitchen, pulling out a packaged bologna sandwich and a coffee thermos. "Before I go, I have a gift from you to me, and now back to you." Leonard looked up, baffled. Scotty was bouncing a hangover relief hypo in between his fingers with a mischievous grin. McCoy moaned thankfully and opened his palm to receive it. 

"Take your time, aye?" Scotty assured as he moved towards his doorway. "I'll see you at the briefing, 1300." 

"Yes, the briefing," Leonard drawled, pressing the hypo into his neck with a soft hiss. "See you then, sunshine." 

Once Scotty left, Leonard leaned back against the couch with his eyes closed and felt the medication trickle through his veins. As his body relaxed, he recognized a surge of some other unrest. It felt like his anger from yesterday was beating out of his chest and working to spear through his ankles and wrists, keeping him pinned on the couch. "No," he commanded himself out loud, squeezing his eyes as tightly as possible, and then relaxing them in an exhale. 

He knew he had to move forward, somehow. He could feel both a concern and restlessness that didn't belong to him chewing on his heart and stomach; he knew another confrontation with Jim and Spock was due soon. Leonard couldn't remember a time in knowing Jim Kirk that he'd felt further away from him, though, and he hadn't been so turned off from Spock since he'd watched the Vulcan choke Jim near to death back in their Nero days.

Once he felt like he could move without crawling, Leonard went to Scotty's sonic shower to achieve a sense of clean for the first time in four months. He crossed his arms on the shower wall and leaned his head against them, breathing deeply. He thought back to his conversation with Scotty the night before. 

So far, they had split about 500mL of Aldeberan whiskey between the two of them. Scotty pointed to Leonard and shook his head. "Kirk makes a mess all the time. You remember when he was like, fuck it, and destroyed Vaal on Gamma Trianguli VI?" 

They both laughed, and Leonard nodded sleepily over his glass at Scotty's dining table. Starfleet had been absolutely peeved. 

"But he is in charge of his messes because they are the right thing to do. He is a respectable man, a great man!" Scotty pounded the table with his fist. "It is Jim's nature to err along the way, but that dinnae stop you from loving him before." 

Leonard finished his drink in a gulp and sat his glass down heavily. "I didn't stop loving Jim in the past twelve hours, Scott, for god's sake." He shook his head and poured himself another shot. "But I can't pretend that he didn't abandon the effort of my team, and the Remopians. He damn left us to run around planetside like chickens with our heads cut off." 

Scotty nodded and poured himself another drink also. "Aye, I understand. You know, I happen to recall another fellow that misbehaved for the sake of what he felt to be a larger cause, as well as his own personal interest." He wiggled his eyebrows at Leonard until it clicked, and McCoy shook his head. 

"Me saving Jim's life using Khan's blood is not the same thing." 

"Oh?" Scotty laughed. "You essentially stole a weapon of mass destruction from the Federation, as it was sitting in the Enterprise's brig." He counted on his fingers as he spoke. "You lied to Command at Starfleet HQ and told them Jim was alive. You told them you were performing an 'extensive procedure' on him while you were actually adapting that weapon of mass destruction to create some mad elixir. And you brought a man back to life, McCoy! You played God!" Scotty slapped his hands on the table and looked at Leonard with wide eyes, still laughing, incredulous. "You brought a man back to life and then destroyed the evidence. That's the kicker for me, really. You gave yourself the authority to _choose_ life or death when you had the power of both!" He shook his head and slumped back in his chair. "Oh, and you missed my birthday. So." 

Back in the shower, Leonard sighed heavily and kicked off the sonic pulses. 

* * *

A few weeks after Leonard's 31st birthday, his first live-in girlfriend after Jocelyn broke up with him at their favorite restaurant. A lovely woman named Rosemary. They were together for three years. Leonard was sure he loved her, but after Nero almost destroyed Earth, she was a bit too shaken to pursue a relationship for which she was not as certain. Jim had found him two days into his wallowing, wearing days-old clothes and listening to 20th century John Prine. 

"OK,” he had said, turning around Leonard's lightless, messy living room in a slow circle with his hands held up in the air. "I get it. But this is ... " He laughed, facing Leonard. "This is unacceptable behavior for my best friend." 

"No." Leonard crossed his arms over his chest, half embarrassed and half petulant. "Did you come over here to talk shit?" 

Jim shrugged. "Would you kick me out if I said yes?" 

They had both known, even then, that Leonard couldn't kick Jim out of a damn thing if his own life depended on it. So when Leonard didn't respond, Jim just smiled at him and opened his hands by his sides. "We've been invited to a gathering to celebrate the world not ending. You're my date." 

And maybe it was the fact that that night was the first time Leonard made love to Jim Kirk that got him out of his shell the next time he felt like cowing down, some sort of conditioning. Maybe it was that Jim, that day and every day afterward, helped show him that being trapped in his mind was Leonard's worst-case scenario. Whatever it was, after 31, Leonard always did his best to stretch his legs when he felt like a brick of human shit. 

So after his shower at Scotty's, he made his rounds. He stopped to visit the officers on his away team to see that they were well. He dropped by Medbay to arrange an appointment with Dr. Chara to be cleared for duty as the ship's CMO. No reason to resign if the problem was less the Federation and more the Enterprise's personality-rich Captain, he supposed. He tried not to give power to the anger, grief, and dread pinching at his insides. 

With only a little time left before the briefing, Leonard dared to go by his quarters for his formal medals. His stomach roared with an acid that he still couldn't identify as being from his own stress, his bondmates' stresses, or a general hunger. At least he knew that Jim and Spock were most likely already at the debriefing room, talking about him. 

Except when he entered, Spock was there holding a teacup between his palms at their kitchen table. Leonard watched the side of Spock's neck twitch as if resisting the instinct to look up and interact. 

Leonard cleared his throat in the silence, still as a deer, and then moved towards the bedroom. Neither of them said a word while he searched through his dresser. Spock listened from the kitchen, eyes closed, and tried to contain himself against the despondence built up in months without McCoy and cemented by their confrontation. 

All quiet on the front, Leonard walked back through the kitchen, sat his items on the counter, and toed off Scotty's too-small sneakers. "Leonard," Spock said calmly, finally, to his back. "I hope you're well?" 

"I'm doing extremely well," Leonard replied, his voice laced with a sarcasm that he always meant to be slightly less biting than it came across. He sat down at the table across from Spock and pulled on his black work boots. "As you can tell, with your power to read my emotions." 

Spock hummed in his throat and took a sip of his tea. "I am sure, then, that you can also tell how well I am doing." 

"So that indigestion wasn't my third cup of coffee after all." Leonard clicked his tongue and opened the box of his medals. 

Spock watched Leonard struggle silently to arrange them without a mirror. Eventually, he pushed his tea away from himself and moved across the table to squat in front of McCoy. Without a word, he looked into Leonard's face and then down at his shirt, and Leonard dropped his hands. Leonard could smell the incense lifting off of Spock's skin, and he closed his eyes against the surge of love he felt, like bile in his throat. "I don't need you to do that," Leonard insisted, but his voice cracked at the end, and he made no move to stop Spock. 

"I insist that I know you," Spock said quietly after a few moments, his fingers working on pinning Leonard's medal of valor over his heart. 

Leonard breathed out heavily and fought against the shame that rose in him as their fight in his office centered at the front of his mind. "You've got a funny way of showing it." 

"I don't intend it to be funny." Spock closed the wooden box he was working out of but didn't move from his squat. His eyes were open and clear, trying to tell Leonard something that he wasn't sure how to say. Leonard stared down at him and watched him hesitate. Right as he was about to walk away, Spock explained, "Your perspective is often so far from my own that it is difficult for me to react quickly in the way that you need, for which I am sorry. As I believe you'd say, practice makes perfect." 

When Leonard didn't berate him, Spock continued, feeling emboldened. "I know about the boy on Woudros. I am sorry for your loss, Leonard, and I am also sorry that I'm only now telling you." 

"Thank you." Leonard nodded. After a moment of his own hesitation, he put two fingers over Spock's. Spock turned his palm up under Leonard's hand; Leonard could feel a subtle wave of relief run through the Vulcan and watched his lips part just slightly. "I don't think I could disagree with you more sometimes, you know. Makes my skin crawl how you can look at someone suffering and turn your back to them because you've quantified their importance and found it lacking. I hate that you have the power to make Jim do it, too."

Spock shook his head minutely and curled his fingertips against Leonard's. "It is routinely the case that the person suffering is indicative of a greater issue. I find it is more useful and efficient to deal directly with the larger structure." 

Leonard made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. "I know you do, Spock." He pulled his fingers away gently. "And as much as I'd love to run through the reasons why I think that's wrong, we don't really have the time." 

Instead of leaving right away, Leonard continued to look at Spock. His face twisted, torn. He reached for Spock's jaw with both hands and cradled his head. "You can feel that I love you always, even though you drive me up the damn wall. I miss you so fucking bad. But I'm gonna need a lot of time." The corners of Spock's eyes ticked down, and Leonard could feel a dread through their touch. Maybe his own. He brushed Spock's cheeks with his thumbs and bumped their foreheads softly. 

"You remember that I love you," he ordered. 

Spock nodded, though his eyes were downcast. He leaned forward to press a chaste, dry kiss against Leonard's lips. "I will."

* * *

Jim had hoped he would never experience the angst towards a formal debrief that he was experiencing for this one with Admiral Altorous. He was definitely going to have to explain the circumstances of not accomplishing his tasked mission, the death of six crewmembers, and suddenly deciding to try a new strategy in withholding information from his away team. He could only pray that the Admiral wouldn't also want to discuss why his best friend and bondmate hated him and why he was such a bastard. Kirk's sole relief was that after the meeting, after the next confrontation with McCoy, he would seek solace in Spock. But then Spock and Bones arrived together and exchanged some _look_ as they took their respective seats. Kirk was slouched back in his chair, head in his left hand. He stared at Spock until the Vulcan looked back with an eyebrow quirked. 

"Ok," Jim said, sitting up straight and breaking through the quiet bubbles of chatter in the room. He stared at Spock for a beat more before turning to the others in the room, each in turn. They looked up from their PADDs to acknowledge him. "I trust that everyone's well and prepared. Let's begin." 

* * *

"Our transcripts reflect that you did not discuss a time frame with your away team, Captain, until after you had personally requested immediate dismissal from Remopia." Admiral Altorous looked at Jim over the bridge of her glasses. They were roughly an hour and a half into the hearing. 

"Yes, well -- "Kirk cleared his throat. "As described, Remopia would not fit into a time frame. The situation on-planet was too fragmented to accomplish a civilizing effort in the requested two to four months. When I realized we were going to overhaul the itinerary instead of adapting it, it made more sense to focus on supporting the away team's research effort." 

"Did you discuss the sudden dismissal of a time frame with Dr. McCoy?" the Admiral continued. 

Jim glanced at Leonard; he looked like a stone carving in his chair. He looked back at the Admiral. "No. As reflected in your transcript." 

Altorous brushed the comment aside. "Why didn't you?"

Leonard turned his entire head to look directly at Jim. Jim straightened in his seat and tried to ignore him. "The away team was in the thick of a brand new situation. I felt it was safer for them to proceed organically rather than with the specter of a looming deadline." 

Admiral Altorous acknowledged his response with a hum in the back of her throat. "Dr. McCoy's reporting, around 14 weeks, suggests that his team was operating under extreme pressure to convince Starfleet to grant a mission extension. I have no record of that request."

Jim felt Leonard's blood start to simmer under his skin, and Spock shifted in his seat. "Dr. McCoy asked for an extension of his mission after my request for a sixteen-week deadline was approved. I told him that I would request the extension, but did not." 

"Why didn't you?" Altorous asked again, sliding her finger against her PADD's screen. 

"Because the mission was a drain on the Enterprise's resources, and it was an unnecessary threat to my crew. Remopia requires a more focused effort." 

Admiral Altorous looked up from her PADD to Kirk. After a moment, she said, "It's out of character for you to withhold information from your away teams, Captain Kirk." She turned to Leonard. "Dr. McCoy, please advise with your impression." 

Leonard felt a single minute's uncertainty for how to respond, drawn between loyalty to his bondmate's reputation and loyalty to his own beliefs. Just a single moment, though. "Because my team believed that we had the chance to earn an extension of our mission, we put ourselves at greater risk to achieve a meaningful reward." He looked up to Admiral Altorous. "I believe that Captain Kirk put my team's lives at risk by not being straightforward about the mission's timeline." 

The mood in the room was tense. Scotty looked down at his hands, conflicted. Spock set his features to neutral while trying to support his Captain through their bond. It was difficult to do; Jim's shame at his actions and surprise at Leonard's open critique to the admiralty lapped over him in crashing waves. 

Did everyone feel that way, Jim wondered. Did everyone blame him for the lives lost on Remopia? Was Leonard right? Sitting across from him at the table, Leonard could feel his distress. 

"I agree," the Admiral concluded. She sat her PADD down and looked at Jim. "We don't want to see that tactic anymore." 

"Understood, Admiral," Kirk conceded, nodding his head once in deference. 

Leonard leaned back in his chair and felt a very brief moment of vindication. Once it passed, to his great disappointment, he found he still felt bereft. 

The Admiral continued, taking a slug of coffee. "We agree that Remopia demands a concerted effort, though. Let's talk about what that looks like."

An hour later, the Admiral dismissed their hearing. "Hang around, Kirk," she commanded. 

Kirk thus remained seated while the others filed out. Spock gave Jim a lingering look as he stood and straightened his shirt, doing his best to leave him with some small comfort. Leonard, on his way out behind Scotty, stopped by the Captain's chair. 

"Captain," he bid, holding out his hand. Jim stood up and faced him, shoulders squared. "Doctor," he replied, shaking his hand firmly. Every feeling wrapped up in their physical touch and eye contact was confused. Leonard pulled away first. 

"Thank you for your time today," McCoy said blandly. Then Jim was alone. 

* * *

When Jim returned to their quarters later that evening, no one was home. He was almost relieved. He toed off his boots and flung them across the living room with a kick, pushed down his regulation pants to a pile on the kitchen floor, and poured a tall glass of Romulan ale for himself. 

Once settled at his office desk, he checked his messages. McCoy, Leonard requested temporary access to empty guest quarters. "Fucking fine," Jim growled to and for just himself. He pressed _Granted_ on the screen. 

He turned his chair towards the wall then and sat in the quiet dark of his office. As the minutes passed, some dual beast of resignation and panic rose out of his gut and worked its way into his chest and throat. Jim tried to swallow it down with a drink, his hand shaking. Suddenly he felt pinpricks in his eyes, and his cheeks were hot. "Fuck, fuck," he groaned. He hurried to put his glass down and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. 

And he proceeded to cry, for his crew, and Bones, and his own guilt and shame. His weeping became cathartic somewhere along the way, and he let it out in belts to free himself. Jim wasn't sure how long he cried, but the act was replaced with bone-deep exhaustion as it began to fade. 

In the aftermath of his release, he could hear the ship's hum very clearly, like a lullaby. He reached for the abandoned ale on the bookshelf and chugged it down, burping once afterward and wiping his eyes on his command yellow sleeve. With no strength left in him, he slumped down into his chair and dozed off. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She's going through a rewrite :)

Spock found Jim in his office chair, fast asleep, with his head tilted back, hands folded over his lap, mouth open and snoring. Whenever he and Leonard had found Jim like this before, Leonard would say, _Bless Him._

Jim didn't like to be carried to bed -- a lesson that Spock had learned the hard way, many lessons ago. Instead, he turned on the lamp by Jim's desk, squatted by his chair, and squeezed his knee. "Jim," he called quietly, rubbing his arm. "Wake up." 

Meanwhile, Jim was off in Iowa, resting in his childhood bed. George was reading a comic to him, voice going high and low, up and down with the characters. Jim was laughing and trying hard not to doze, but the bare sun was coming through the window and settling heavily on him like a weighted blanket. "You falling asleep on me already?" George teased. Jim shook his head and flailed around on the bed to show off how wide awake he was. George rolled his eyes but beamed down at him, rarely really annoyed. "Yeah, OK." 

Jim hunkered back down into his pillow and closed his eyes as George read. He barely noticed how George's voice was garbled together for all the sun's heat enveloping him. It wasn't until George started saying his name, touching his arm, that Jim noticed his brother's voice was shifting from his own to one much deeper, older. He couldn't open his eyes against the now oppressive heat. He felt a split second of panic before his conscious mind recognized the voice, and an intense relief took its place. 

He breathed out heavily from his mouth and lolled his head to the side to look at Spock. "Hey," he said, blinking with heavy lids as he reached for Spock's hand. "You came home." 

"Yes," Spock replied, voice confused. He let Jim take his hand, which he guided to rest over his heart. "My lab work with Dr. Goudros finished ten minutes ago. I asked you earlier if you would prefer I canceled it -- "

"I didn't think you would," Jim interrupted, turning his head back center and closing his eyes again. "Come home, that is." The corner of Spock's lips twitched down, and he rubbed at Jim's chest. 

"Bones requested new quarters," he explained after his heart beat once, twice under Spock's hand. 

Spock's stomach dropped, and Kirk's face twisted against the effect of if. "I didn't know," Spock responded, easing his hand up Jim's neck and across his face apologetically. 

"Yeah, well." Jim turned his face away from Spock's touch. "Guess he didn't want to live with Starfleet's worst fucking Captain anymore. Sorry." 

Spock drew back his hand and slowly stood up. "Jim," he said with a touch of sternness, turning the Captain's chair away from the desk. "It's late. Come with me to get ready for bed now." 

Jim did, obligingly. His head hung through every step, and Spock watched him, flossing and sanitizing his teeth with Jim always at the corner of his eye. Spock knew that Jim and Leonard, at their worst, thought he was oblivious. After the series of events over the past three days, Spock had almost agreed with them. Almost. 

Once they were in bed, he drew Jim into his chest and fit his jaw into the crook of his neck. "Leonard will come home," he said in a low voice, scratching his fingers through the hair on Jim's chest. "And your record places you far from the place of worst captain in Starfleet."

Jim responded by leaning back into Spock's warmth, radiating around him like the sun in his dream. "I'm not sure that Bones will come home, Spock. And I'm not confident that you won't leave me to be with him when he moves on,” he confessed.

Spock saw the logic of Jim's fear clearly and felt nauseated by the supposition. He pushed Jim onto his back and moved on top to straddle him, supporting himself on two hands on either side of Jim's head. "That is an unhealthy thought to have," he said, simply enough. 

Jim looked up at him. He felt like a nine-year-old twerp crying over his mom, leaving for space again, abandoning him and George in Iowa with the corn and the dust. "Tell me you haven't thought about it," he egged on, not sure anymore if he was looking for comfort or vindication. "After you saw Leonard today. After how fucking horribly that briefing went." 

Spock let out a noise very near to an annoyed huff if he was capable of such a thing. He felt his seams start to stretch. He pressed his lips against Jim's as if to draw the sentiments out and spit them in the dirt like poison. 

"You must know that that vision is impossible," Spock all but admonished, sitting back on Jim's thighs and pressing Jim's wrists down into the mattress over his head. "We are all three bonded. I cannot leave you."

Jim avoided Spock's stare, unassured. Spock loosened his grip on Jim's wrists and leaned down to kiss his cheeks, his forehead. "Jim," he called to him, chests pressed together. He ran his lips up Jim's neck. "Please do not ignore me." 

He shifted slightly, and Jim felt his own breath catch in his throat as Spock's hips moved against his, grinding down on Jim through their pajama bottoms. "Tell me you understand," he ordered, whispering against Jim's ear before pressing a kiss sweetly against it. And though Jim struggled to respond verbally, with his heart starting to pound in his chest, his physical body did not experience a similar stall. 

Spock continued to move against him and waited until he could feel Kirk fully hard to press their lips together again with greater intention. When he pulled back to meet Jim's eyes, he brushed his fingers against his cheekbone. _Tell me_ , he dared, and Jim gasped at the feeling, jerking his hips up under Spock's weight. As Spock was entering him, moments later, he found himself both puzzled and annoyed over how Jim Kirk would ever think he, or Leonard, could live without this, without him. Without the crinkle around his eyes or the soft pop his ankle made when he curled his toes. 

"Tell me that you know I will never leave you," Spock ordered again, tightening and loosening his grip around Jim's inner thigh in rhythm as he moved deeper inside of him. Jim looked at Spock with his eyes blown wide open and moaned from deep in his chest as he rose from the bed to grab for Spock's hand. He fumbled with it until it was resting against his meld-points, and Spock, in deference to him, connected their minds. And there was Spock as Jim saw him, pure light, and both of them torn apart with Leonard atop, holding them down on the earth as Spock's face bore open every feeling in his chest and Jim blew to bits with the force of it. 

Through the vision, Spock could feel Jim right at the edge. He groaned and shifted inside of him the way Leonard had taught him. Jim's breath stuttered before he yelled Spock's name and crashed into his orgasm, spilling over his chest and squeezing against Spock inside him. Spock's mind whited out with his own release, and he pitched forward with it, untethered. 

As they both waded back to reality, and Jim ran his hand over Spock's back, face, and arms, Spock only started to remember his initial message. He rolled over to lay by Jim's side, holding his face and looking at him with big, sated eyes. "I am asking you to acknowledge something between us. The three of us." 

"I'm sorry," Jim replied, shaking his head and pressing his face against Spock's. "I know that you won't leave. That Bones will come home, maybe." He kissed his neck and reached down to grab his hand to kiss his fingertips, every one of them in turn. After a moment, to Spock's surprise, he laughed. "Though if this is going to be how you handle my insecurities … " 

As Spock held Jim and rubbed his back until he slept, Leonard wiped his cum off himself two floors away, feeling disgusted. 

* * *

The thing about Leonard was that he was participatory in everything that the Enterprise was up to. There was almost no time when Kirk was on the bridge, consulting with his First Officer, that Bones wasn't standing right behind his shoulder with an opinion. 

"Aren't you busy with flu shots today, Dr. McCoy?" he asked, a week into their New Normal. Leonard was espousing his disagreement with the Federation's attempt to brain drain Janus VI. The Enterprise was planning to stop by the planet -- spread a little fanfare for the next Starfleet term, and maybe check in on the regrowing Horta population for a mining project elsewhere. 

McCoy rolled his eyes and sighed loudly. The mood on the bridge stiffened, with everyone having already waited days for a seismic, public tiff between the two to roil it out. 

"Busy trying to keep your head out of the Federation's ass," he replied instead, a classic. Kirk felt the bridge crew relax. Leonard and Jim locked eyes briefly, and Jim almost expected the same old small smirk followed by a tip of Len's head back to the viewscreen. Instead, Leonard frowned at him, and Jim wasn't sure whether or not Bones looked away before his face twisted. "No use wasting my time, I guess," he drawled, turning on his heels to head back to Medbay. 

The effect was twofold, in that Jim was almost always thinking about Leonard but never dealing with him, and vice versa. They would have a fine day together professionally. They would return to their respective quarters to not potentially ruin whatever unstable peace they were working towards. There was the added fact that Jim's thoughts on Bones were nebulous, and Leonard's on Jim felt increasingly abstract as the ship took him farther from Remopia.

For Leonard, and to his shock, he also remembered how he absolutely preferred to live alone. He hadn't experienced the luxury of it in over half a decade, even though he had had his own place -- not with Kirk as his bedfellow. Jim was ever-present in a home, even when away: the bric-a-brac from all of his adventures, even including a walk to the park, was integrated on all surfaces; there were notes left on Starfleet stationery in his scrawling type, some reminders, and some sentiments, on the replicator, on the desks, in the bathroom; and he would leave the evidence of his leisure interests lying about anywhere, like his family tree's copy of _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_ or a half-painted landscape diorama. And while all of those things contributed to why Leonard was fucking obsessed with Jim Kirk, it was nice to come back to sterile quarters with only his junk tossed here and there at the end of the day. Temporarily nice. 

Maybe Leonard was drawing out the time before he approached Jim; at least it was evident that he needed to do it soon. The three had fought before, most often Leonard and Spock, but they were always making up (usually in bed) within 36 hours. Now they were each learning how to occupy their new situation separately, unideal, and Leonard seemed to hold power. _Give me time_ , he told Spock, implying that he would be the one that returned after that unspecified amount of time had passed. He couldn't blame Jim for sharing Spock's tactic. 

It was also true that the peace aboard the Enterprise was bound to shatter in some commotion of Space Disaster. McCoy knew that it was in the ship's (and his) best interest if the CMO and Captain were reconciled for that, as most often, the commotion resulted in Kirk half-dead in Medbay. 

Alone in his guest quarters late one evening, Leonard knocked on his sound system's faux wood. He turned on some Bernie Krause to drown out the dread silence amplifying his thoughts. He spread eagle across the mattress and fell once more into a mostly restless sleep. 

* * *

52 hours later, Leonard was squatting next to Jim in a dank cell somewhere in the godforsaken Gamelan system. He worked to staunch the blood flow out of Kirk's side with a primitive first aid kit he always kept clipped under his uniform while planetside in case of emergencies. 

He fucking hated being right. 

"Stop squirming," he snapped, slapping Jim's hand away while cleaning his wound with iodine. Jim groaned and tried to sit up for a better angle, but Spock held him firmly in place. "You wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't announced to the whole damn world we were here." Which, Kirk agreed, was maybe right, but less right than his decision to do it.

The Enterprise had received a distress call from a research party on Gamelan V concerning poor relations with the Gamelan V natives over a perceived territorial issue. The party requested assistance quelling hostilities and connecting with the Chairman's government to accredit the conflict on an official basis -- Federation protocol. As the Captain, Jim chose the party that best suited what was supposed to be a bureaucratic visit with maybe some brief, brute involvement in a conflict area: himself, Spock, Bones, and four members of Security. 

Instead, they arrived during a genuine attack on a Federation research base with the Chairman nowhere to be found. The head of the research party, a polite man named Lawrence Rachor, was disemboweled and strung up by the central lab on base. The seven members of the Enterprise crew scurried about for the better part of Gamelan V dusk to assess the situation. When one of the members of Security, Gormley, got captured, Jim Kirk stepped out of the shadow at the edge of darkness and played his hand: he denounced the hostilities against the research party in the name of the Federation. The next thing they all saw was Captain Kirk hurling sideways to avoid a spear in the gut (though it still caught a nice hunk of his side), and then the inside of a Gamelan V prison complex. 

To Jim's comfort, and the best of his knowledge, everyone on his away team was still alive. The Chairman of Gamelan V was surely on his way, the Federation was aware of the situation, and Starfleet would respond shortly. Even if it didn't (which he was sure it would), the Enterprise was waiting right outside the atmosphere to intervene. All he had to do was wait patiently, not die by a blood infection, and make sure his away team remained intact in the meanwhile. The latter task was maybe a challenge, but his confidence was high, especially with Spock on his team. The antepenultimate task, however, gave him much anxiety. Bones did not seem happy to be stuck in a cell with him, after all. 

"You know I don't like beating around the bush," he replied to Leonard, laughing out of his nose and watching with rapt dread as Bones started sewing his flaps of flesh together with primitive steel and string. Leonard hummed in his throat and continued to work. Spock patrolled the cell, exploring every detail, every bump in the brick and knick in the steel bar. He studiously focused his mind away from the internal spasms of his bondmates, five feet away. "Sorry you're stuck with me, though."

McCoy shook his head once and focused on his task. "Fool thing to say when you're bleedin' all over our mattress." His hands stilled, and he looked up at Jim with a small smirk to ease the tension. "Besides, there's something about a poorly lit dungeon that's always made you pop for me."

Jim huffed out a laugh and tried to relax against his elbows, choosing to stare up at the grey ceiling instead of watching Bones pick at his skin. The three commanding-officers-turned-prisoners focused on their singular tasks in quiet peace. Jim sent his mind to his Security team, locked up only God knew where waiting for the Captain's plan to come together. Leonard watched his work and barely noticed his subconscious start to play a slideshow of memories, from giving his first set of stitches to receiving them. Spock listened raptly to the sound of casual footsteps meandering yards and yards away, his fists wrapped loosely around the bars of their cell, and his eyes closed. 

The footsteps faded, and Spock was left with a lack of noise that highlighted his bondmates' breathing. He leaned his forehead against a bar. There was an anxiety inside of him that Spock felt growing larger and larger, pressing against his skin. Under his eyelids, he watched Jim patiently chipping away at a combination puzzle in pajamas, nestled in between Leonard's legs on a hotel couch during shore leave. Leonard was reading an article on his PADD, one arm wrapped around Jim's side with a hand resting on his belly. 

Spock remembered Leonard looking up at him with a grunt and shattering their calm, quiet afternoon by saying, "This guy is a fucking idiot." Jim had laughed and shaken his head, teased Leonard a bit, and gotten rebuked with a sigh and reflexive kiss on the head. Spock, wearing his first pair of cotton sweatpants and overcome by some foreign feeling with the force of natural disaster, had replied, "I believe I am in love with you both.”

Feeling as adrift as he had at that moment, Spock declared, "Leonard, I request that you come home when we return to the Enterprise." The hallway he said it to was still empty outside of their cell. He heard Jim breathe out heavily through his nose. 

Leonard didn't pause in the work of sealing off his handiwork on Jim's side, but Spock felt the shoe drop inside of him. 

"Gonna jump right in, I see," he replied eventually, moving to rest his back against the bed frame where Jim was lying as he tucked his supplies back away. He clipped the kit back into the skin-tight utility belt he kept under his shirt and fought against his instinct to meet Jim's eye. "I know. I will. I -- " He gesticulated uselessly. "I don't have a good grip on this." 

"We don't know what that means," Jim snapped, still trying to find a comfortable position. 

"It means I’m still a little fucked up over you lying to me, Captain.” Leonard whipped his head to glare at Jim then, indignant at his immediate attitude. He stood up and smoothed his hand over his shirt to calm down. "Which, fine, you're a liar, but you don't lie to _me_. So how do I work this new information into our dynamic after a full decade defined by knowing and trusting you?" 

Jim's eyes flitted over to Spock's back. Leonard waited for Kirk to respond, and when he didn't, he felt the ball of yarn keeping him quiet over the past week unfurl through him. He continued, emboldened, "And you know what: Fuck Remopia. I understand. I wanted to stay; I think we could've saved many lives. I think you both made the wrong call, and I think you, Jim, handled that wrong call in an even wronger way. I feel -- " He struggled then with his words, shaking his hands by his sides. "When I think about Remopia, I feel resigned to you two." He turned his shoulders to look towards Spock, who was still watching the hallway. "Not that that's new for me. But I was in Woudros missing y'all so fucking bad. Even for all of Spock's top-down worldview, I made the mistake of thinking you both supported me, supported the mission. I thought about coming home to the two of you in every free moment. Then it all went to shit." He laughed sardonically and looked between them, burning for some eye contact. "In 24 hours, I found out you all didn't believe in me or my mission. That you, Jim, had gone behind my back to abort it, which is a whole can of worms already popped open and making an absolute mess everywhere. And Spock, bless your fucking heart." Leonard turned to look straight at the Vulcan, and Spock turned his chin over his shoulder minutely. "I suppose you're trying your best, but damn it all if you trying to explain away my reaction that day wasn't the worst timing." 

Spock rested his chin on his shoulder, sensing the eye of McCoy's storm. Leonard, meanwhile, felt like a derailed train plowing through everything in sight. He turned to glance back at Jim, who was watching him. "Of course I want to come home, but it's damn faint in me. I can't remember how I missed you in Woudros. I wanted to come home with some sort of fire in my belly, but it's …. gone out. I don't know." 

There was a silence in the cell. Eventually, Jim whistled low under his breath. "A lot to unpack there, Bones." He sat up unsteadily, leaning against the cell wall and pressing tender touches into the flesh around his new sealed wound, a masochistic tendency that drove Leonard crazy. "To be clear, I only lied to you to protect you. And myself, I guess, because I figured you were going to die, and I didn't want -- want us to bicker about diplomatic timelines." 

"Yeah, like you don't want a child's first dead pet to be complicated by describing it had a complex illness instead of saying it went up to doggy heaven, Jim." Leonard scoffed and rolled his eyes. "I have a young daughter; I get it. You understand the offensive part is that I'm an adult man, and we're in a mature partnership." 

"Fuck, Bones!" Jim scowled, and he felt his body fill with a fiery hot sludge of shame all over again. His toes crinkled around it, and by the time it reached his throat, his blood was searing in his veins. "I'm sorry, OK? I'm a big old brat that's scared of confrontation because of my complicated childhood. I'm selflessly selfish. I'm -- "

"Jim." Spock turned away from the hallway to face the two of them and held up a hand against Kirk's growing tirade. He turned to McCoy. "I regret my part in your withdraw, Leonard. I apologize for dismissing your experience in my own perception's stead."

Leonard nodded awkwardly, feeling the sensation of being trapped in a skin that was trapped in a cell. Maybe at some point, it'd all give, and he'd be free, ethereal, floating away from the situation and back up to his empty quarters, where there was a liter of whiskey and pictures of Joanna. Despite his own discomfort, he extended his palm to Spock and curled his fingertips around the Vulcan's when he offered them. 

Jim sat cooly on the bed, caught between humiliation and anger. He knew he needed to focus and redirect that energy towards The Other Perspective, like Bones and Spock had tried to teach him. _Don't jump_ , they told him at this moment a hundred times before. He knew deep down that loving them didn't have to be a game of chicken, didn't require clear cuts, and he was wrong while they were right. But he had always been shit at dropping his shields in the middle of a battle. "And I apologize for the fact that, as a Starship Captain, I don't have the luxury of seeing you only as you want to be seen." 

Leonard shook his head then and looked to Spock, who had turned his head to acknowledge the sound of approaching footsteps. "Whatever, Jim," he replied, waving his hand through the air dismissively and walking towards the hallway for a better view. "Let's just shut up and live long enough to get back to the damn ship."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raise your hand if you’re a Jim !!
> 
> I usually leave Joanna out of McSpirk but couldn’t resist here. 
> 
> Janus VI from TOS “The Devil in the Dark” — an episode about doing your best to read through your own misconceptions in order to relate to others.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She's going through a rewrite :)

Leonard had always been a boyfriend — dinner dates, buying small baubles based on a quiet joke three weeks ago, public displays of affection. 

Jim wasn't a boyfriend when they first met, and for most of the decade afterward. When they had started sleeping together, Leonard thought, _maybe now_ , but no. He didn't push it. At that point, fresh after the Narada incident, he was still busy talking himself into living in space when he'd barely figured out long-distance parenting on Earth. Together they settled into the comfortable but borderline fraught routine of best friends who run to each other for a little more than comfort at the end of a hard day.

It had always been difficult for Leonard to keep Jim at arm's length, though. He regularly drowned in Jim's distinctive cedarwood and lemon scent. Lost his grip a little more every night he watched Jim sleep. 

When there were mere weeks before the Enterprise took off on her first mission, McCoy forced himself to address the elephant in the room that he alone seemed to notice. 

The two were shoulder to shoulder in Leonard's suite, freshly fucked. Jim was still kissing Leonard's neck while he relaxed against the headboard, slightly sticky and very sleepy. "Almost time for take-off, Bones," Jim whispered in his ear, grinning against his skin. 

"Don't remind me, you rascal," Leonard groaned back, blinking his closed eyes open, joking but full of a sick dread. 

"What do you have left to do before we go?"

There was a frog in Len's throat then, and he turned to look at Jim with what he hoped was his most inviting smile. "I gotta go see Jo." He reached for Jim's hand and tried to maintain his confidence. "Honestly, Jim, I'd like you to come with me." 

"That could be fun," Jim mused, leaning back and squeezing Leonard's hand. "Two pals among the peaches for one more hoedown." 

Leonard smiled at him uncertainly. "How about a hoedown with your boyfriend?" 

Jim's smile shrank, and his hand stilled against McCoy's skin. The evening, a la Leonard's life, devolved quickly to the fastest break-up he'd ever had.

Jim was honest about his hesitation to start his career as the youngest Starfleet captain with a Command-echelon relationship disclosure form. Leonard was honest regarding his shock that Jim Kirk was finally -- as in for the first time -- taking his advice to be a little more in-the-box. 

Anyway, Jim didn't spend the night, and Leonard went to Georgia alone.

* * *

Lovers, boyfriends, partners, or not, the two navigated space like a pair of old cowboys. Leonard often thought that he'd never had a better friend in his whole damn life. It was in his quietest, loneliest moments a full year on that he anxiously wondered if Jim felt the same way. That he wondered if Jim thought of him when he touched himself the way that Bones thought of him, satisfied but guilty, full of an aimless regret. 

It wasn't so bad, living in the tin can. Len got to be with Jim, witnessing him in just about every situation, on almost every day. He met with Scotty once every two weeks to experiment with some new spirit, with Sulu once a month to play around in the botany lab. With Uhura regularly to wade through Earth's old cultural classics. Most surprisingly, he found himself compelled to be in the infamous Professor Spock's company. McCoy hadn't pinpointed what it was, but there was some thrill that took him over whenever he shocked the Vulcan. Whether they were exercising in the rec room, eating dinner, playing chess, or simply visiting, Len had his eyes peeled. He was intent on the quirk of Spock's brow, the twitch of his lips, any slight variation in his breath. Spock didn't seem to mind. 

* * *

Leonard didn't get two whole minutes of relief to celebrate that he'd lived through his time on Nibiru before Spock's certain death confronted him. _He'd let you die,_ he'd told Jim. And although he’d meant it, his heart beat dully, and his blood flowed like thick sludge through his body, already in mourning.

Hours later, absolutely alive, Spock sat stalk-straight on his Medbay bed while McCoy performed his requisite physical. "Can't believe you," he huffed, a master of personal admonition in the workplace. "You'd rather die than break the damn rules."

"Going against the Prime Directive is more than breaking the rules, Doctor," Spock responded, his voice a tint towards annoyed. "Also, dying is not exclusively negative."

"You dying _is_ exclusively negative," McCoy responded, voice sharp, meeting Spock's eye and looking away quickly. "The people that love you -- I mean, the people that know and love you -- you hurt them. That's why we're all so pissed off at you." Spock didn't respond, but his eyes softened at the corners. Leonard continued, quietly, "It makes us all remember what you think of our deaths when you say shit like that." 

Spock reacted then, grabbing onto Leonard's wrist to still his hand guiding the tricorder. McCoy jerked his head up, and met Spock's targeted gaze. His eyes were still soft, and there was one small crease between his brows. "I'm sorry that I hurt you," he said, and Leonard felt the floor start to crumble under his feet, drawing him down with only Spock's grip on his wrist keeping him up. 

* * *

The autopilot that took over Leonard's mind and body when Security brought Jim to Medbay in a body-bag was like passing away himself. He remembered very clearly watching the tribble on his desk twitch alive. Then everything else was pitch black until Spock unveiled it years later. 

There was a period when he felt absolutely alone with Crytotube Jim, even though his medical staff was allowed to remain on board with him for a short time. He set an alarm for every twelve hours to take an energy booster, drink three liters of water, eat a meal-replacement bar, and stretch. At one point in that timeless landscape, Leonard cut his palm deeply with a glass tube. His alarm had gone off, and the sharp noise had caused him to shatter it in his grip. He cursed the wasted tube all to hell, wrapped half a sleeve from a disposal scrub around his hand, put a glove on, and returned to work. 

Spock returned four days later to assist, after the first round of debriefings on Khan and Captain Kirk's "injurious condition." 

Leonard registered his presence very faintly, except when Spock began taking the break alongside him. While stretching, his movements were measured, thoughtful, targeted. They stood in stark contrast to Leonard's; days in, he was basically throwing his body around to get the blood flowing. 

"Jim will return," Spock stated easily one day. Leonard had been trying not to stare at him coming out of a side lunge. 

Instead, he shrugged, lulling into barely-swaying hip circles. "Why do you care so much, anyway?" he asked, waist-deep already in a week of self-sabotage. "You get a professional win if he stays dead, and death is no big deal, right? I'm not even sure why you're here." 

Spock planted his feet and looked at Leonard in a way that sucked the oxygen clear out of the room. "Jim is my t'hy'la," he enunciated. "I can ... admit when I have been wrong. I ask you to not make such claims against me again." 

The doctor was caught off guard and humbled by Spock's honestly. "Of course. I'm sorry." He looked away, a slight heat in his cheeks attributable to either humiliation, untoward jealousy, or the chemical process of his body beginning to break down. "I didn't realize that you and Jim had that -- that you all were together." 

"You're misdefining t'hy'la, Doctor," Spock replied. Instead of explaining further, he turned on his heel and went back to his work. 

Hours later, Leonard found his favorite flavor meal-replacement bar at his keyboard and a cup of hot water with lemon. He looked up to see Spock determinedly programming algorithms in his own area. He, too, had a cup of hot water by his left hand. 

* * *

A week later, Jim was out of his cryotube and not technically, but actually, alive. 

Spock sat with Leonard at 0200 while the doctor methodically shaved off Jim's hair, all dead from the radiation, his skin gray underneath. "Ten credits says it grows back pink," Leonard said aloud, though Spock was used to him talking to himself by that point. "Kidding. I have no damn idea what it's gonna do." 

The skin and hair had almost been the most challenging part for McCoy. He had considerable practice in vascular studies, after all, but little to none in dermatology. Him, of all people, creating a God-loving repair cream out of biohazardous blood. May his ancestors' souls rest in peace. 

So for hours, Leonard massaged the thick white lotion of his creation into Jim's scalp, blinking down at and trying to ignore the deep, dark circles around Kirk's used-to-be full, bright eyes. The hum of the ship under his boots created a rhythm in his blood, like a field of cicadas. He felt empty except for a panic ballooning his skin, battling against the calm rhythm of his fingertips against Jim's temples, the crown of his head. 

Spock looked up when he heard the doctor's breath shake, almost imperceptible. Grief twisted his face, and his cheeks were wet. Spock had no idea how long he had been crying, and he wasn't sure Leonard even realized he was. 

"Doctor," he called gently, breaking through Leonard's trance. 

Leonard froze and looked to Spock, startled as though he forgot he was there. He turned back to face Jim. Emotions were dawning on him so quickly, suddenly, unqualifiable -- he sensed relief, at least, and a torrential sadness that ripped up his insides. Sadness that Jim Kirk had been dead and Leonard had lived in that redefined world for even a split second. Sadness that Leonard hadn't been with him; hadn't been able to tell him he loved him, needed him, as he passed. Sadness that he'd had to shave off Jim's beautiful fucking hair, that his scent like sunshine was gone in the wind. 

He pressed the topical into Spock's hand and crumpled, pressing his face into the blanket on Jim's chest. His shoulders shook with politely contained sobs. 

It felt like a breakthrough for Spock, watching him. McCoy's self-expressions had already been something that the Vulcan drew nearer to, almost by compulsion. It was as if Leonard experienced Spock's feelings on his behalf, as if he was the outlet Spock didn't know he needed. He basked in the sensation of his own emotions bleeding out as Leonard cried, a martyr to this larger-than-life human experience. 

"Leonard," he called again, suddenly yearning beyond control to touch him. He approached McCoy and laid his hand against his back, between his shoulder blades. 

Leonard made a small noise in his throat and scooted towards Spock's body. Emboldened, Spock began to gently massage the back of McCoy's neck, even carding his fingertips through the rough of hair at the nape. Practices he had learned from his mother when he was very young. 

He didn't stop as Leonard began to calm, and Leonard didn't move to stop him. 

"You love him," Spock said simply, what felt to Leonard like hours later, tone neutral. 

Leonard raised himself enough to rest his head against his hand. He looked down at Jim properly and nodded. 

"Yeah," he admitted, sighing heavily, wiping his face with a broad palm. It felt freeing to say it aloud. "I have for a long time." 

Spock was almost surprised that he didn't feel disappointed, despite the affection for Leonard that had accrued in him over the year. He raised an eyebrow at himself and tucked the observation into his back pocket for another time. He ran the pad of his thumb over the shell of Leonard's ear. McCoy moaned wetly back, pressing his head against Spock's hand. 

"I have to sleep," he declared shortly after. He pulled away from Spock's attention to turn toward him. He looked like he was already halfway there. "Let's both go." 

Later on, Leonard would attribute his forthright request, unmarred by nervousness, to the stress of the situation and the empty feeling that consumed him after his emotional release. Jim would attribute it to the fact that Leonard was a cuddle bug, and he had been feeling the warmth radiating off of Spock for however long the Vulcan had been petting him. Spock never felt the need to attribute it to anything, because Leonard had needed him, and that was enough. 

They went to Spock's quarters. There was an earthy, spicy scent wafting in the air that made Leonard feel almost out-of-body, and the heat was soft against his skin. Unabashed, he took off all of his clothes except for his underwear. He climbed into Spock's bed with the confidence and practice of a partner. And when Spock joined him, he didn't hesitate to press his back against his side. 

Spock stayed in his bedclothes, but the sensation of Leonard's skin through the cotton caught his breath in his throat. Leonard barely noticed, only just feeling the tension in Spock's position. "Sorry," he said drowsily, already falling asleep. 

"It is fine," Spock responded honestly, voice quiet. He rolled toward McCoy and pressed his palm against his chest, holding him. The onslaught of emotion that poured through the touch felt transformative, and Spock took a series of controlled breaths through it all. 

Leonard slept more deeply than he thought maybe he ever had; Spock didn't sleep at all. 

* * *

Immediately after Leonard submitted his brief tracking Kirk's return to consciousness, he received paperwork placing him on administrative leave and naming his first hearing date. There was a claim against him that he had used Khan's blood to create a zombie, yadda yadda. He hadn't responded back to any of their official inquiries for over a month, and he hadn't allowed Starfleet Medical to intervene, despite protocol. There was more, roughly fourteen pages worth, of total rebuke. McCoy wasn't surprised that they were pissed; even he felt queasy about what had happened, now that the dust was settling. 

He was surprised, however, that he was relieved. It was as if, now that the hearings could start, it was finally over. He would be able to return to Earth and see Joanna, see his parents, sleep a full night, and drink a damn beer. He wouldn't have to think of something to say to Jim when he woke up, even though he knew he was awake. 

Spock didn't ask him about these things, and Leonard didn't offer them aloud. They hadn't spent a night apart since that first night. Once Leonard got the call to depart from the Enterprise for his formal lashings, he made love to Spock for the days and nights he wouldn't see him. For the reality that he may never be allowed to return to space, and Spock would just be another blip in his life. Maybe he'd never see Jim again. He rolled his hips, moving inside of Spock almost at leisure, teasing the spot that he knew Spock loved, and let one hand roam freely along his neck and abdomen, up his leg. 

"Leonard," Spock gasped, eyes closed, and a tremor in his voice. McCoy's eyes moved up to his face, and his fingertips followed, brushing against Spock's lips. Spock reached for his hand and held it by the wrist, away from his skin, thrumming like a taut string. "I am overwhelmed." 

Leonard clucked his tongue sympathetically and lowered down over Spock's chest, supporting himself on two hands spread wide across the pillows. He was careful not to touch him save for sinking deeper inside of his body, close to filling him up. "Sorry, darlin," Leonard whispered, kissing Spock's ear, nuzzling his cheek. "You make me feel so much. You want me to stop?" 

Later on, Spock would dispute it, but Leonard maintained that he whimpered, shaking his head and pressing a tentative hand against Leonard's hip to encourage him. So he pushed deeper inside of Spock still, felt Spock twitching against his groin, and heard him exhale a shaky breath. Leonard pulled back to look at him, touched the pad of his thumb against the corner of Spock's eye until he looked back. 

"I'll share it with you," he said quietly, a question. "I'll help."

After that, McCoy remembered very little except for Spock's acquiescence, his brown eyes giant, scared, concerned, yet so _trusting._ And for all of his medical know-how, Leonard couldn't explain the meld, couldn't explain what it was like to have Spock inside of his very spirit, without fumbling around with it. There was a burst of energy inside of him, dizzying. Spock was suddenly everywhere: his incense, the smell of his shirt at the end of the day, the texture of his hair under Len's fingers. Leonard saw himself everywhere, too -- saw Spock afraid of him, also. And then, through the pressure, he felt Spock's release build with no sense of time passed. He felt himself kiss Spock's face, his lips; felt the Vulcan sun pressing gentle against their bare skin until it burst under their eyes. Leonard felt himself absolutely trembling, grasping for Spock, who was shuddering through his own orgasm, happy to be held. He pressed his face into Leonard's neck as his hand slid away from his temple.

* * *

It didn't take long after Leonard's return to the Enterprise and the beginning of the crew's five-year mission for the doctor to become space's favorite target. It turned out that everyone wanted a piece of someone that could cure death with a pocket-sized, portable vial. Not that anyone knew about the pocket-sized, portable vial that Leonard kept of his serum. Almost not anyone. 

Mostly when someone attempted to kidnap him, Leonard was able to shake them off. It was a blessing to him that so many ne'er-do-wells thought Starfleet blueshirts were boneless academics instead of the trained soldiers they all were. But it happened frequently enough that whenever the Enterprise was on a heavily trafficked planet, or on shore leave, Leonard had a personal Security detail lurking at the corner of his damn eye. Humiliating. 

But Jim and Starfleet agreed that he and Spock were sufficient protection against the monsters under the bed. No matter how ludicrous that was to Leonard, it was always a relief to him when it was just the two of them making sure he didn't get dragged off to God knows where. So whenever they were strolling around, exploring some new wilderness, Leonard took in the sights and smells and felt so good and free. Content. He barely noticed that his company's smiles were tight behind their eyes, gazing around, waiting for someone to come from above and nab Leonard from right out underneath them. 

They were all surprised when instead, the beast came from below. A sentient vine angered to hell that Sulu had tripped on it. It sought revenge by wrapping around the next passersby's leg and sending him hurtling down a brush-heavy ravine, snapping his ankle. Leonard remembered screaming _Fuck_ as he tumbled down, caught off-guard, and thinking of his imminent death in the context of that as his last word. 

Jim yelled his name back and moved to slide down the ravine after him, but a Security member grabbed his arm. He looked over to see Spock already halfway down, graceful as if he was walking on a carpeted floor, face calm. Jim watched him settle gently next to Bones, touching the side of his face to ease his pain while Leonard ripped through all the other curses he knew, cradling his leg. Then they pressed their fucking heads together, and Jim watched Spock brush their fingertips against one another, watched him squeeze his hand. 

"Bones, you OK?" Kirk yelled down to interrupt the moment. Leonard looked over his shoulder and then turned back to his injury. Spock responded, "It appears that perhaps both the lateral and medial malleolus have broken. I will return with Dr. McCoy to the ship." 

"Bones?" Jim called again. 

"What, Jim?" Leonard yelled back, fiddling with his tricorder. "My damn ankle's broke all to bits. You go on."

Jim swallowed and watched Spock look into Bones' face, eyes soft with sympathy. He felt sick to his stomach. 

"Sure, OK," he responded dismissively, waving his hand. "Wishing you a speedy recovery, Bones. We'll send flowers." 

He could hear Bones grumbling from 25 yards away, and made a point not to watch as the two of them beamed away. Sulu was taking samples from the emotive vine. Jim tried to suppress his anger at McCoy and Spock for finding a way to sneak back off to the ship together, the two of them all the time ogling each other and probably fucking, definitely finger-kissing, and making sustained eye contact. Jim hated it. 

"Everyone be cautious," he ordered, pushing on through the brush. "There must be something in the water down here." 

* * *

For Jim's birthday, Leonard fulfilled their tradition of celebrating over a bottle of KY whiskey and a classic movie he'd spent the past year knowing Jim'd love. All despite how fucking weird Jim was being. For 27, technically under a full year of Jim being alive again, he opted for light-hearted and brought a Guest movie. Jim was five shots down by the time Gerry and Cookie were singing their ode to Winky on-screen. He was occupied, seeing visions of Spock touching Leonard behind his eyes and smelling his incense on Bones' loose t-shirt and sweats. 

"Things are going pretty well with Spock, huh?" he asked out of the blue, staring at the screen. Leonard looked to him briefly, eyebrows raised. 

"I guess they are," he responded, easy, shrugging. 

"That's good." Jim's stomach was tight, and he took a hefty swig of his drink. "You're staying over there mostly? You smell like his quarters." 

Leonard took a sip of his drink and nodded. "I don't know how he does it, but it's like Phoenix in there." 

Jim huffed out what he had wanted to be an earnest, small laugh, for Leonard's sake. The movie's vocals seemed distorted, and all he could see was Bones spread out on Spock's bed, naked, cheeks red, and smiling. Leonard cleared his throat and looked between the movie and Jim at least three more times before sighing, annoyed. He paused it. "There something you wanna say, Jim?"

"No, no," Jim lied, shaking his hand and raising his hand. He looked to Bones and found him watching him intently, and as soon as their eyes met, Jim felt caught. "I'm really happy for you. For you both, even." 

Bones moved his hand in a circular motion, prompting Jim further. "And?" he questioned, drawing the vowel out. 

"And nothing, that's it. I'm ecstatic that you both found someone. It's not even weird." 

"Oh Jim," Leonard groaned, rubbing his face. "You're beating the damn bush to death. You know I didn't meet you yesterday." 

Jim hesitated, but when a kernel of truth popped through the bourbon's haze, he didn't suppress it. "You weren't there when I woke up," he said, putting his glass down. "I know your hearings had started, sure, but I also know that you would've been there if you had wanted to be. I know the folks at Medical told you I had woken up, and you still didn't come. Everyone else came, Spock the first of them, except for my best friend that everyone was raving had saved my life like some man possessed." 

Leonard watched Jim closely with a neutral expression, not moving to interject. Jim pushed on with a laugh. "When I did see you, after I _sought you out_ , you barely reacted. As if it was a normal day, and I wasn't going through summer courses to make sure I didn't forget my ABCs. You were just a regular guy with a new, regular Vulcan boyfriend, grabbing a light lunch with his science-project buddy."

"What did you expect me to do?" Leonard asked finally, wrapped in the ice-cold blanket of those days when he could barely move without thinking of Jim Kirk, terrified of him, and of the power Jim held over him. 

Jim snorted in response, gesturing out to the empty living area, waiting for a coherent answer. "I don't know," he offered, on the verge of defeated, dropping his hand back on his lap. "I thought you'd be in my corner, at least. That you'd tell me you had missed me."

Leonard cleared his throat against the small frog inside it, drained his glass, and leaned forward to pour a fresh shot. "I'm sorry, Jim," he admitted, unable to look in Kirk's direction, shaking his head at himself. "I'm ashamed. I've been ashamed, trust me. I just -- I couldn't, I couldn't look at you after seeing you through your treatment. I couldn't find the words, I can't -- " His voice broke when he tried to continue, and he covered it up with a drink. "I can't tell you that I missed you, Jim. It's a whole fucking river dammed up in here. I can't just -- "

The room was quiet. Jim looked at the paused movie, at the smile of some long-dead actor. He listened to Bones swallow down his drink and decided to pour himself another to keep pace. 

"I wasn't ready to lose you, Jim." Leonard's voice sounded steady, but he still couldn't bring himself to look over. He imagined himself standing up and walking away from the situation; he wondered if Jim would let him. He already knew what Spock would do after coming home to him with an albatross around his neck for months in a row. "As stupid as it sounds, I'm still not ready to have lost you." 

Jim sighed and sprawled back on his corner of the couch, eyebrows raised, cavalier. "If it makes you feel any better," he replied, pausing to take a small sip of his drink before raising his glass in cheers. "I wasn't ready to die.”

Leonard felt caught in the ribs by a sharp elbow. Christopher Guest stared back at him from the holoscreen, smiling wide, petting his hound's face and holding him close. His mind went to Spock, probably back in his quarters, sitting straight at his desk with a PADD and Starfleet's latest breakthrough brief. It went further to Spock's memories of Jim on shore leave and in San Francisco, grinning broad, hair loose; to Spock's memory of Jim Kirk smug through plexiglass after defeating his Kobayashi Maru, colored red; to Spock's memory of Kirk dying, his hand pressed against Spock's through the tempered glass and then dropped lifeless as he passed away. It went to Jim asleep in his bed at the Academy, dead to the world against Leonard's chest, cheeks red from exhaustion after a week of testing, and needing a safe place to call home for ten hours. And Leonard, always delighted to oblige. 

The next thing Leonard knew, Jim had his arms wrapped around him. And he hadn't let go since. 

* * *

Over three years later, the ice in Leonard's drink melted against his desk as he shifted in his chair. He remembered the way Jim's skin had felt against his fingertips while shriveled up from radiation poisoning. He remembered the way it had felt against the same fingertips while fully alive that night on his 27th birthday. 

He got up and walked to his bedroom, hotter than comfortable, dry, drowsying. Spock was fast asleep on the far side of the bed, perfectly still on his back, hands folded over his abdomen. Jim was on his side facing Spock, uncharacteristically balled up. Leonard made a small noise in the back of his throat as he slid into his bed for the first time in almost half of a full year. The curve of his body matched against Jim's, encouraging it out of its bunch, and Len breathed out deeply into the crook of Jim's neck as their fingers slid together. 

"Bones," Jim moaned quietly, still asleep, loosening noticeably and pressing back against Leonard's body. Spock turned his head to the side facing away from them, but his left leg moved to drape over their ankles. 

Leonard hushed him gently under his breath, carrying their joined fingertips to brush against Spock's in his sleep and pressing his lips against Jim's hair. "Go to sleep, honey," he ordered softly, slowly. "I love you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Origin story chapter! 
> 
> Almost done.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please pardon the blank chapter! 
> 
> I love the idea behind this story and want to do it justice, so I'm going through a rewrite. There are some major changes, so please find any updates on the new work, _Pandora_ , if you're so inclined!
> 
> Didn't want to orphan or delete work in order to keep the memories of your sweet support and messages :) Thank you for all your love so far! Xo

Please pardon the blank chapter! 

I love the idea behind this story and want to do it justice, so I'm going through a rewrite. There are some major changes, so please find any updates on the new work, _Pandora_ , if you're so inclined!

Didn't want to orphan or delete work in order to keep the memories of your sweet support and messages :) Thank you for all your love so far! Xo


End file.
